


A Feather On The Breath Of God

by Razzaroo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Multi, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/pseuds/Razzaroo
Summary: "Once, a long while ago, Gwydion Amell had been told that his voice sounded like its bones had been broken." In which some things change and some things stay the same and the Blight succeeds in bringing people together.





	A Feather On The Breath Of God

_Then it pleased the King to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly.  The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along.  Thus am I a feather on the breath of God._

**_Hildegard of Bingen_ **

Once, a long while ago, Gwydion Amell had been told that his voice sounded like its bones had been broken. That had been Neria Surana, bright eyed and fresh faced and long since sent away to a Circle hopefully far kinder than here. Now it’s just him and Jowan and the Veil pressed so thin and so close, he knows his nose will bleed soon and there’ll be one less apprentice come morning.

Gwydion’s always hated Harrowing nights and he misses the time when he and Jowan had been small enough to fit into the same bed, wrapped around each like shields, like armour.

But they’re not and they can’t so he lies quietly, watching the bars of moonlight across the wall and watching Cullen watching him across the room. Blood starts down his upper lip and he wonders if it’s worth disturbing Jowan.

(‘ _Maybe you should have tried healing,’ he’d said the last time Jowan had come to his rescue, ‘You’re good at it.’ And Jowan’s reply had been only a tense smile, another wire in a face too young to look so worried.)_

He says nothing when the Templars come for him, because his voice is a fragile thing and he’s not going to waste it on them. Greagoir ignores the blood on his lip but Cullen doesn’t. Cullen moves to wipe it away and Gwydion lets him because it’s a harmless enough thing and besides, Templars have little regard for a mage’s no, even from those with voices which weren’t fragile, broken in things, with whole voices.

( _Remember this, he tells himself, Remember this and use it again. You were kind to me once; be kind to me again. Indulge me, indulge me, indulge me.)_

“Don’t become attached to them,” Greagoir says to Cullen and neither seems to care that Gwydion is listening. He suspects Greagoir wants him to hear, “You can’t hesitate if a Harrowing goes wrong. Remember, every mage is one step away from becoming an abomination; it’s our duty as Templars to keep them from taking that step.”

Gwydion wants to remind them that he’s not just a potential abomination, that he’s as human as they are. But he remembers Anders and holds his tongue. He doesn’t need to tell them a thing. He just needs to show them.

 

* * *

 

“And this one. Newly a mage and already flouting the rules of the Circle.”

Beside Gwydion, Jowan is tense, every wire of him, every cord, every moving part in him pulled tight. Gwydion wants to reach for him, because Lily has stepped back and away under Greagoir’s stare, but he feels that if he moves, not only will Jowan crack but so will he. He refuses to crack, to let go of all the anger he’s bottled up, not here, not in this moment.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Irving says and Gwydion bites the inside of his cheek, “You could have told me what you knew of this plan, and you didn’t.”

“No,” Gwydion says and his voice is in contrast to Irving’s, winter breeze to Irving’s wind beaten gravel. He can taste blood in his mouth, “I didn’t. And I’d do it again. I’d do it a hundred times.”

“You don’t care for the mages!” Jowan says before Irving can retaliate, “You just bow to the Chantry’s every whim!”

And the truth of that is written on Irving’s face, rings in his silence as Greagoir condemns both Lily and Jowan, echoes in his concern for a Templar without even waiting for Gwydion’s reply. The air reeks of iron, sticking to Gwydion’s tongue and between his teeth.

He goes with the Grey Warden, with Duncan, because he has no choice, because what can he say or do to make anything better here, because he has already dug his grave and at least being a Warden means he can at least choose where it will lie.

 

* * *

 

Ostagar smells of iron and smoke, of dogs and men, of swamps and open open sky. Beneath his skin, Gwydion’s magic pulls, feeling the fizz and pop of the other mages, his people who are both still and no longer his folk. He stays on the edge of the ruin, the Taint still curdling in his veins, and watches the kites circle, watching their forked tails tilting, listening to their whistles.

“The farmers call them shite hawks in Redcliffe.”

Gwydion flinches and turns and Alistair, who isn’t much older than him but still seems it, at times, looks apologetic.

“Sorry,” he says, joining Gwydion on the wall, “About that. And also the Joining.” His nose wrinkles, “And also the witch.”

“I thought she was interesting,” Gwydion says, “Besides, you don’t need to apologise unless you were responsible for her. And if you conjured up a witch, you’d make a poor Templar indeed.”

That earns him a smile, a small laugh, and something blooms below his sternum, something with new leaves and soft petals and a need for warmth and time to grow.

“I s’pose you’re right,” Alistair says, “And you’d know better than me, I’m sure.” He stops, pulls something out of his bag, “I noticed you hadn’t eaten much. You should. Otherwise the Joining will eat you up more than it already is. That and darkspawn, in the woods, waiting for…”

He trails off then, muttering something that sounds like ‘ _shut up, Alistair’_ but Gwydion hardly minds. He’s never been one to ramble himself, being born with grandparents who believed children should be seen and not heard and raised in a Circle that said much the same for mages. And what Alistair says is true, in that he hasn’t eaten and the Taint is gnawing him from the bones up and his stomach is a hollow pit. Still, he doesn’t eat so much as pick at the offered food and watch the kites, circling long and slow, unconcerned with matters of mages and Templars, of darkspawn and Grey Wardens, of swords and kings.

“They were in Kirkwall too,” he says and it’s Alistair’s turn to twitch, “They stole sheets off the lines but my father fed them anyway. They have a place, he said. Why else would the Maker make them?”

Kirkwall is an easy thing to talk about, despite it being inhabited by his father who can’t be his father, his mother who is not allowed to be his mother and his sister who would no longer look at him and see her brother. Despite it, Kirkwall is also a repository of fondness, of music lessons and strawberry preserves and climbing an oak tree to be among the nesting birds.

But then Alistair’s smile is warm and easy and the new blooming thing stretches up over Gwydion’s ribs and he’s suddenly too aware of the inadequacies of his own tongue, so he stays quiet unless Alistair speaks first and curses himself for it all.

 

* * *

 

Morrigan is a mage who has not known fear.

No, incorrect. Morrigan is a mage who has not known the fear of Templars. Likely, she has feared many things, though she doesn’t speak of them. She sneers at Alistair’s grief and Gwydion’s Circle techniques and the dog, named Garrick halfway to Lothering, who’s brave enough to make the attempt to lie across her.

But when it’s just the two of them, when Alistair has fallen asleep, his head pillowed on Garrick’s ribs, then it’s different. Morrigan lets Gwydion sit by her when the moons are up and the only light is weak embers. She watches as he weaves magic into his staff and doesn’t look surprised when he asks about _her_ magic.

“Is there something specific you wish to know?” she says and her eyes glint gold, cold as untouched jewellery.

“Can anyone learn?” he asks, “Any mage, I mean.”

“Yes.” She draws the word out and considers him with those brass bright eyes, “Though I’d imagine ‘tis quite different to anything taught in the Circle.” She looks at the contrast of their staves, “But perhaps you felt a little like a caged bird, caught within that dark tower.”

Gwydion wants to say yes, wants to say that she has no idea but maybe she does. Perhaps the relative safety of the Korcari Wilds trapped her in as much as the tower walls had trapped him. Perhaps there had been something in the wilds holding her there, her own Templars.

He doesn’t say it, since he knows her response would be a scoffed ‘ _Don’t be absurd.’_ Instead he looks up at the pearl drop of the moon, the sugar scatter stars. Alistair snorts in his sleep.

“Very much so,” he says and he will not talk about the Circle, not to her, “Can you teach others?”

“By others, I assume you mean yourself?”

He nods and the night bends around her smile.

 

* * *

 

Kinloch Hold has never been a welcoming place. The smell of the lake fills it, cold and damp, the reek of algae seeping in through the stones during the summer months. The air here is something that hums and sings, magic and fear blending together in uneasy symphony, a song made worse by blood mages and demons, by drakes and failed Templars and flesh that blooms on the walls. Leliana still looks grey.

Gwydion still shakes slightly as he reenters the hall, Irving in tow, the Litany of Adralla still clutched in stiff fingers, the dreams and whispers of a sloth demon still in his ears, smoke in his hair. Greagoir stares and Cullen stares and Garrick is the only one who moves, bounding forward to lick the blood from his face.

“I need the mages,” he says, when Irving is done soothing Greagoir’s frayed nerves, irritated that even after everything, after all the horrors, all the trauma, they’re having to reassure the Templars, coddle them instead of demanding how they could fail so badly, “For the Blight.”

He has treaties, a crutch to lean on to give his soft, broken voice the strength it needs to make demands. Greagoir acquiesces and Irving promises the Circle’s aid and Wynne looks about ready to burst with pride. She’s always been that way, has Wynne, with her soft encouragements and quiet pride, even when Gwydion had scorned the gentler school of healing magic for the more visceral school of entropy.

Before he leaves the tower for a second, this time for good, he stops and turns back for the last time, one hand on Garrick’s ruff. He looks at Cullen and Cullen looks at him and any softness the Templar might have felt for him once is gone, replaced by something hard as granite. Gwydion dips into the decade old reserve of anger that he keeps nestled in the hidden part of his mind, somewhere no demon or Templar could touch, and draws out a small piece, a small ration of it, a splint for his broken bone of a voice.

“I am _not_ a thing,” he spits out, venomous and hot, and Wynne’s pride falters but somewhere, Anders’ glows.

 

* * *

 

Before, it had been demons who kept sleep from being the safe haven it was for everyone outside the tower; Gwydion and Jowan had spent those long childhood nights curled tight together, sharing stories of knight enchanters and noble monarchs and women borne of flowers.

Now, it’s darkspawn dreams that keep him up and there’s no Jowan, only Morrigan, sleeping with her back to him because she’s irritated he holds so tightly to quietness, even during sex, insisting that he’s no free mage if he lets the Circle control everything about him even now.

He pulls on his robe, kept from the Circle, and crawls out of the tent, leaving Morrigan to her dreams, the shadows of them chasing each other across her face. Barefoot, he approaches the low embers of the fire and rekindles them with a touch of his fingers.

“Can’t sleep, dear Warden?”

Gwydion doesn’t turn, because now he’s used to people sneaking behind him. The assassin, Zevran, steps beside him and his eyes catch the fire’s light and reflect it back, gleaming gold. Gwydion folds down onto the ground beside the fire and Zevran cocks an eyebrow.

“You are remarkably at ease, considering how suspicious your bed mate is,” he says, kneeling down, “One dagger, that’s all it would take, you know.”

“It’s been three days. If you were going to kill me, you’ve had plenty of opportunity.” Gwydion stares in the fire, “But then I suppose, you don’t much want to be the dog’s breakfast.”

“He is a formidable opponent, that is true.” Zevran pokes at the fire and Gwydion watches the ashes fold into themselves, even as he feels Zevran watching him, “So, what keeps you from sleep, Warden?”

“Gwydion. My name is Gwydion.” He pauses, suddenly very aware of how his name tastes in his own mouth, wonders how it would for Zevran.

“Gwydion,” Zevran says and it’s like he’s savouring it, the forest earth taste of it, “So what keeps Gwydion from sleeping?”

And that’s a question with a multitude of answers. Demons. Darkspawn. The feeling of the whole Order, the whole kingdom, the whole world in his hands. He doesn’t say all these things; he only shrugs.

“I have very full hands,” he says and he doesn’t object when Zevran’s fingers find his, lean brown hands turning his palms up.

“Yet I have complete faith in them,” he says and the vine that has taken root beneath Gwydion’s sternum climbs further up the trellis of his ribs.

“I may need someone else to carry some of it,” he says eventually and he’s thinking of Alistair and his secret blood. Zevran laughs.

“Of course. Why else would you bring a qunari?”

They fall silent then and it’s only the sound of the fire and the wind in the woods and down deep below, the darkspawn scratch at the innards of the earth.

 

* * *

 

When the moons go dark, Morrigan shows him how the wolves run.

It’s hard to be afraid with a wolf’s teeth, a wolf’s eyes, a wolf’s reputation.

 

* * *

 

Wynne’s hands have not changed. They’re a little more lined now, time etching itself into the skin of her fingers, but they’re still gentle, still cool, still a presence some small part of him wants to cling to. This close to her, his bleeding palm in her hands, he can smell the herbs she uses, the tang of them, and there’s still soap under her nails from scrubbing Garrick.

“You did a fine job here,” she says and her magic is a balm, though the wound shows no sign of closing. She frowns, “How did you do this?”

“An accident,” he says and it’s a half truth, really. Cutting so deep had been an accident but the cut itself had been intentional, an attempt to tap into whatever power could send Templars reeling. Wynne’s mouth presses but she says nothing else.

“Perhaps it’s because of the Taint,” she says softly when the wound finally heals, still livid and red, not a clean heal she’s used to. She covers the wound with gauze, clearly still uncertain, “Please, be more careful.”

She stands to return to her tent and Gwydion sees the look on her face, the one she tries to hide, one of dread and suspicion and a desperate hope that what her gut is telling her, what her magic is telling her. Gwydion looks down at his hand and wonders when Wynne’s magic had started to sing so much.

 

* * *

 

It’s Alistair who goes quiet after the events at Redcliffe.

Gwydion finds him in the courtyard, lingering near the stables, kicking pebbles. He’s avoiding the castle, avoiding Isolde, avoiding Connor, avoiding everyone. He stops when he sees Gwydion and his shoulders are slumped, a sudden invisible weight dropped on them. He looks worn down, as a rock is by the sea.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about who my father was,” he says, “I hate telling people; I always become King Maric’s son, not just Alistair.”

“I don’t see you as anything but what you are,” Gwydion says, because he doesn’t, “And a friend, if that’s all right by you.”

He’s rewarded with a smile and a nod and Alistair just barely keeping himself from tripping over his own tongue. Overhead, the kites circle and call and continue on, as if there is no Blight, no dying arl, no strange something climbing Gwydion’s ribs and spine, tangling around the names Alistair, Morrigan, Zevran. Frost cracks on the ground despite the season and Alistair steps back from it, cautious, having seen enough glyphs to know how this could end.

It’s Gwydion who leaves and, when he’s alone, he finds his staff has cracked from ice and wonders, if the Maker is real and still cares enough to notice a single mage, whether it’s a portent.

 

* * *

 

They take Jowan away again, when Eamon recovers. He calls the Templars before Gwydion can even wrangle a private audience with him.

He catches up to the Templars halfway back to Redcliffe. Jowan, he holds close, breathing in the smell of dungeons and damp, of fear and too much blood. He feels Jowan’s hands pulling on his tabard, despite the manacles, despite the Templars.

“I’ll come for you,” he says, _promises_ , and his broken bone voice is fierce, whole again for one moment and he means it. Even if Jowan is bones and dust by the time this is done, Gwydion will not abandon him.

The Templars pry them apart and Gwydion stays stood in the road, watching that wall of shining armour. He stands and turns and looks back at the castle, where he knows Eamon is plotting, planning the shape of Ferelden to come, moulding the future to his desires.

Gwydion’s going to take it all from him.

 

* * *

 

“I found something for you.”

Zevran raises an eyebrow because this is the first time Gwydion has approached him, has reached out to him. He sets aside his daggers and whetstone, giving Gwydion his undivided attention, interest and curiosity in those bright eyes. Gwydion kneels beside him, produces the gloves from his pack; Zevran takes them, running one finger along the embroidery, slightly puzzled.

“They’re Dalish,” Gwydion says, holds his voice steady, as the man who breaks an ancient curse should not waver, “You mentioned your mother’s and I thought…”

He trails off because the look on Zevran’s face is something he doesn’t want to spoil with speaking.

“You remembered,” Zevran says, “I didn’t think it would rank very high in the priorities of a Grey Warden.” He looked at Gwydion, “The story of the anonymous mother of the elven assassin doesn’t compare to a Blight.”

“It was a story about you. That means it matters.”

For a moment, Zevran looks surprised, touched, but he blinks it away and replaces it with his usual easy smile, “Thank you, Gwydion. Now, you have heard of my mother and remembered her. If it’s not too much, I’d like to hear about your mother.”

Gwydion rocks back, “There isn’t much to say.”

“Not much to say? About the woman who made someone like you?”

“The Circle made me,” Gwydion says and it comes out harsher than he intended, bite of winter in his tone, “She never had the chance.” He hesitates, fidgets with his hands. His parents are something he wants to keep untouchable, something to hold onto and hope for. He breathes in, “She had yellow hair.”

“That’s all?”

“The rest is history lessons and politics and Antivan perfume.” Gwydion shrugs, “It doesn’t matter. She had to stop being my mother when I went to the Circle. I’d change it if I could; I’d change the whole system.”

“You could,” Zevran says, “You easily could.”

“It’s a big system, Zevran.”

“And? The Archdemon is a very big dragon, yet it only takes one man to bring it down.”

Gwydion looks towards his tent, where he keeps the ancient treaties binding them all together, and how much he will depend on them. Cut back the darkspawn, give him the time, the chance, he needs to be that one man. He doesn’t want to think about how, as much as he will depend on them, so much also depends on him.

He turns his face to sky and closes his eyes, “Good thing there’s two of us then.”

 

* * *

 

“How do you enjoy it so much?”

Zevran only hums in reply, continuing to kiss a line from Gwydion’s neck down to his navel. The air smells of sex and sweat and leather and Zevran’s satisfaction but Gwydion’s heart is restless. He shifts and runs a hand through Zevran’s hair, fingers catching in a tangle. Zevran stops his kissing, straightens up, and one hand taps a count over Gwydion’s ribs.

“Why would I not enjoy something I want?” he says. He cocks his head and those fingers still, warm and oh so present on Gwydion’s skin, “Is this something you want, Gwydion?”

Yes. No. Gwydion doesn’t know what he wants. He wants freedom and safety and to not be badgered about wanting such things. He wants power and he wants change and he wants a place to call home that is both more and less than Zevran’s arms.  

 He leans forward and presses his face into Zevran’s shoulder, breathes in the warm smell of him, and hopes that his actions are enough, that his gestures and his body language indicate what his voice is too inadequate to encompass: that he wants _this_ and so much more after it.

 

* * *

 

Arl Eamon’s estate in Denerim is a safe haven. Gwydion holes up in the quarters given to him, hunched on the floor, all his notes spread about the floor in front of him. The room is dark, lit by a few candles and the glow of lyrium, bottles lined up in a row, sat waiting quietly for the Archdemon.

He takes the mouse and it’s rigid in his hands. He whispers his apologies, because they’re necessary and mice demand whispers, and the mouse trembles with magic. Gwydion burns with sympathy, because he knows how it aches, how magic stretching and bones into a new shape feels beneath shifting skin.

It’s over in moments and there’s a sparrow in his hands, with beating wings and fluttering heart. Gwydion lets it down to the floor and it stands, wings aloft, a sparrow that doesn’t know how to be a sparrow. It’s not perfect but Gwydion doesn’t want perfection; he just wants something that works.

Alistair sees it later, when he’s seeking some kind of shelter from Arl Eamon and his constant pressing. He raises an eyebrow.

“You and birds,” he says, “Sparrows. Kites. _Crows.”_

He draws out the last words and weighs it down, smiling when Gwydion does. Gwydion gathers up his notes, tucks them away, hides them from view; some things, he knows, are best hidden from Alistair.

“They make me happy,” he says, “I’ll let it go soon.” He reaches up, pushes open the thin window, “I can’t bear to see them caged.”

 

* * *

 

Fort Drakon is worse than the Circle.

The Circle had no freedom; the Circle had guards. But the Circle also had Jowan and books and quiet corners where one could escape scrutiny, even for just a moment. The Circle hadn’t overdosed him on magebane. The Circle had given him the dignity of keeping his clothes.

He curls up on his bed, his clothes abandoned in favour of just his shirt and braies, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. There’s no quick fix for magebane. Wynne keeps everyone else out and sits alongside him, hands cool, coaxing water down his throat. He wants to move but even the very idea of it sends his head reeling, sends dizziness beating through his veins and churning his stomach further. Where his magic should be, there is a wall but he keeps trying to reach it, to pull it round him.

“You’ll be all right,” Wynne says and her calm is an anchor. She soothes the fever building, her magic a Fade song, her spirit soft and constant, “Your magic will come back.”

Gwydion further into himself as the first shoots of his magic come back and he clings to them, desperate to pull and uproot the magebane that’s settled in his system, pull them up and break that barrier. He wants his magic to wash over him again like the tide, that same breathtaking pull he’d felt when he was nine.

Slowly slowly, piece by piece, he tugs his magic free. Here, he’s nine and his mother’s crying because he froze the courtyard and _her_ mother has already sent for the Templars. There, he’s eleven and Irving’s praising him for how quickly he grasps elemental magic, ice creeping in intricate patterns across the tower floor. Here, he’s fifteen and plants wither in his hands and he can’t help but wonder if what Anders says about the Chantry making weapons out of them is right. There, he’s eighteen and his voice is gone, his magic’s a trickle and Jowan clings to him because it’s been a _month_ , a month in the cold and dark.

And then here, he’s with Morrigan and seeing the world as a deer, as a bear, as a wolf. There, Zevran shuddering under his hands because this, this is something new. Here, he’s alone under starlight, and a waterfall glitters, frozen by his own magic and his own hand.

He wraps himself in his magic and falls asleep that way, magic settling on him like a second skin.

 

* * *

 

Despite his best efforts to avoid the inevitable after the Landsmeet, Eamon eventually corners Gwydion in his estate’s library. Gwydion doesn’t look at him but he knows he’s being watched, instead choosing to flip through a history of Ferelden’s court culture.

“That was an impressive performance in the Landsmeet,” he says, “But there is still the question of Loghain.”

“Which is one I will answer _without_ your interference,” Gwydion says, “That’s something Alistair and I have already agreed on.”

Eamon objects and Gwydion can see it but it’s too soon, Alistair too green in politics, too dependent on Gwydion at his side, for him to push. Gwydion’s secure in that fact and he’ll hold on to the security, grow it and develop it.

“And after?” Eamon says, pushing in that direction, “The Wardens will need rebuilding, surely.”

“And I’m sure Redcliffe needs your attention far more than anything I will be doing after the Blight,” Gwydion says, irritated, “You are its arl.”

“Alistair will need a chancellor.”

Gwydion’s temper snaps tight, the presumption digging under his skin. Where had Eamon been, when there’s been decisions to make? Where had Eamon been, when Alistair had needed someone to look to, someone to soothe his griefs and stand by his side?  He shuts the book, harder than necessary, and sets it down, ensuring that Eamon sees the title.

“Alistair _will_ need a chancellor,” he says, leaning heavily on the book, needles of ice prickling on the binding, “There’s nothing saying it’s going to be _you.”_

 

* * *

 

Destroying the Archdemon will also destroy the Grey Warden, Riordan had said.

I offer a way out, Morrigan had said.

Gwydion stands by the Archdemon’s head, its teeth long as his forearm, its eyes clouded and dull with death, dark with blight. His legs are shaking but there’s still a heartbeat in his chest, still breath in his lungs; it tastes of blood and sickness on his tongue, the same that curdles the very sky, but it’s _there._

He only has a moment to savour that before Alistair’s arms are around his waist, lifting him off his feet and swinging him round. He clings to Alistair, fingers sliding on armour slick with blood, and breathes in the smell of sweat and iron, blood and leather, all of them rolled into something that feels like home.

His boots scrape the ground but Alistair doesn’t let go of him; Gwydion hears what sounds like a sob so he says nothing, and it’s for the best because if his voice was a shy, soft thing before, now it’s ragged and torn and worn down too thin. The world boils down to the two of them, two Wardens who shouldn’t have both come out of this alive, and a stale wind that still smells of Blight.

 

* * *

 

Gwydion envies Loghain, though he knows he shouldn’t. It’s Gwydion who stands beside the throne, while Loghain is the one cast down. Yet, Loghain still manages to look proud, even here in the cells, while Gwydion is only able to stand so tall when he’s at Alistair’s side, when he has Zevran’s hand in his.

“So, Warden,” Loghain says, “What’s your intention, now you’ve won everything?”

Gwydion looks at him and torchlight catches in his eyes, “I’m not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Then perhaps you should have let Alistair do it, when he had the chance.”

Gwydion says nothing. He should have. He could have. But Anora had been there; her father’s blood would have been on her face, in her hair, sunk through the fabric of her gown and into her very skin, opening a wound that couldn’t be healed in a place that could never be touched.

“When I’m finished, no one will know where to look for you,” Gwydion says and there’s magic in his fingertips and in the air and Loghain still does not look afraid, does not bend, even as his bones do.

That night, Gwydion sits awake, Zevran curled at his side. The Circle’s delivered his few personal possessions to Denerim, among them the childhood book of Free Marcher fairy tales, the one thing he’d kept from Kirkwall. Once, when he was new to the Circle and it had been him and Jowan, hidden under the blanket on his bed and lit by one of Jowan’s wobbly mage lights, poring over it while he ached for home. Now, he stops his page turning at an old illustration, the traitor turned into an owl by the Maker as punishment for cheating the lord of his life in battle. The lines are thin and ghostly as spider webs.

Outside, an owl calls and it's a raging sound.

 

* * *

 

Alistair gives him the queen’s tower, with its solar and office and guest rooms and Gwydion’s isn’t sure what to do with so much space all to himself. Alistair trails him as he makes his way through the tower, familiarising himself with each room, each step, the very shape of the place. Some of it still smells of Anora, of her perfume and powders, the peppermint oil she used for her hands.

“I know you don’t like towers,” Alistair says when he stops in the solar, with its wide windows streaming sunlight, “But it’s a space. For you. Away from everything. You’re going to need it, I can tell.”

“And Anora’s things?”

“Arl Eamon will have them transported to Gwaren.”

Gwydion makes a mental note to ask Leliana to make sure that happens. Alistair steps up beside him and he’s steady and solid, such a contrast to the uncertainty he had shown.

“How long will you be staying?”

Gwydion smiles, because he knows what Alistair wants him to say, that his position here is secure, that he’ll be _safe._

“For as long as you need me.”

 

* * *

 

Morning draws pale pink and grey, the sun a band of amber in the distance, the air fresh and cool with rain. Gwydion lingers in bed as the sun creeps across the room, Zevran wrapped around him like ivy. The warm something in his chest, the living thing below his ribcage grown from a thin vine to something sturdy and sheltering.

Zevran makes a small noise of protest when Gwydion extracts himself from those clinging hands and burrows further into the soft sheets, such a stark contrast to the rough blankets they were used to. Gwydion leaves him with a kiss and a promise to come back soon, the gifted earring glinting in the cold morning light.

Atop the tower, the wind licks cold and biting, carrying winter with it. Gwydion leans against the battlements and watches the sun wash over the city, turning the grey to gold and making the whole world new.

He shakes out his feathers and spreads his wings and the air bears him because such is the way of air and feathers and all such things. He calls out once and then twice and it’s a kite’s whistle, one and whole and entirely unbroken.


End file.
